[Maryann Corbett]

Marybeth, ah, you're just not old enough. I don't read it as a social commentary, but as a lament for aging. Perhaps you haven't yet reached the point where clothes you loved have become pointless because it's no longer reasonable to wear them, status and styles and the body itself having changed, and not for the better.

I hear in this poem the N. bemoaning his loss of status. Either he's already retired, or most of his peers are--"gone, all gone on golden parachutes"--which means he soon will be, and the youngsters who've adopted a different dress code are hovering and threatening to outstrip him. Most of S1 and all of S2 are fond reminiscences of the vanity and the dalliances that go with power, now gone.

All too easy to understand for this reader. And of course the technique is flawless.

(I think the "negligees of Anthony" line should have been indented and italicized, as a epigram, so it's clear that "Casual Friday" is the title.)

(Thinking again, now that I've been asked to change the title )

[Roger Slater]

There are more than one way to lament aging. One of them, the one embodied by this poem, is to adopt the attitude that all change amounts to the world going to hell in a handbasket, and to wish that the world would stay exactly the way it was when we were younger. Another, alien to this poem, is to lament that we are perhaps too old and set in our ways to embrace the new with the enthusiasm of the young. I share Marybeth's bias against the former, and I have a general distaste for light verse written by and for old fogeys. This poem might have been improved, I think, if it betrayed a more explicit awareness of its "real" subject, but I agree with Maryann that it does so more than might appear at first blush, and, of course, it is written with great skill and humor.

It is already a bit dated, though, since Casual Friday has given way to casual everyday in many offices. In my life, by the way, this trend has been a source of great joy and satisfaction. I absolutely cannot stand wearing a suit or tie.

[Petra Norr]

The explanations Maryann gave make sense to me. But I'm thinking, if only it had been something other than pin-striped suits (S1) or mere suits (the other stanzas). Had it been a piece of clothing that immediately signals an outdated style and older time period, I might have grasped the poem from the start. Like hats -- what man wears a hat today that looks like hats in the 1950s? Or a zootsuit -- I don't even know what that is, but I know it's a fifties thing. Bellbottoms, à la the seventies, does anyone wear them nowadays? Just a thought.

[RCL]

As an aging, self-conscious clotheshorse, while reading this, I wince while I grin. It could be a digression by Prufrock: "I grow old, I grow old. . ."

Well worn,
Ralph

[John Beaton]

N may have forty suits but I find it more impressive that this one dresses so well with only three rhymes.

John

[Rose Kelleher]

Nicely done. Marybeth, in the stanza that bugs you, I sense an aging ladies' man gently poking fun at himself, at his fading powers of seduction as well as his inability to read social cues that used to be more clear-cut.

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Originally Posted by Rose Kelleher

Nicely done. Marybeth, in the stanza that bugs you, I sense an aging ladies' man gently poking fun at himself, at his fading powers of seduction as well as his inability to read social cues that used to be more clear-cut.

Well...OK...I didn't intend to be overly harsh. I admire everything this person writes. I was getting a "blame the victim to save face" vibe, but obviously it can be read much more sympathetically.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Very clever, very witty, well-wrought. I haven't seen it before, but am pretty confident I know who wrote it.

[Susan McLean]

I find this ballade delightful. My reservations are just that the title's reference to "negligees of Anthony" feels like misdirection (the play on the French of Villon won't be caught by all readers, and those who don't catch it will be mystified) and the refrain, I think, should have the same number of beats as the other lines.

My reading of the poem is that the speaker is a persona whose nostalgia is partly endorsed and partly satirized by the author. People of the new generation are portrayed in unflattering ways (but aren't they always?). One doesn't have to accept that the speaker has an unbiased attitude or that all of his actions are being held up for admiration.

Susan

[Terese Coe]

N has a bad case of terminal vanity, and doesn't get how to come on to a (presumably younger) woman banker in tight jeans. Will he ever figure it out? Presumably not. Squeezing her knee and calling her "dear" (to Brits, I know "dear" and "darling" come more naturally, but in the US they're something of a deal-breaker in many circumstances that involve younger women--unless you're much much older, and of course that brings on another all-too-pitiable iffiness) are further indications that N is dangerously past his shelf-life where younger women are concerned. Those facts alone could be handled in a more amusing way, but not in a poem this long. The subject is too slight for the ballade form. It gets repetitious.

PS. re MaryBeth's question, no of course everyone didn't behave in a professional manner toward professional women (they were a rare breed at one time) in the days let's say of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Or even the 80s, 90s, and 00s...It has been an excruciatingly slow process, and at times appears to be (and is!) going backwards. FWIW. I agree with Raj that This poem might have been improved, I think, if it betrayed a more explicit awareness of its "real" subject.

That "real" subject is the quality of being at a loss for how to behave in a changing world, the quality of being left behind. N takes refuge in his wardrobe. That's supposed to be amusing but I'm afraid I find nothing but pathos in it; it's not funny because it's pitiable rather than eminently deserving of compassion. There is no universality here, no sense of "laughing with" the speaker. I wish the final line had some real power--that would help a lot. With revisions, this could show some heft and humor.